DECK 10; SECTION 1: TEN FORWARD

[ships_counselor]

The look of Deanna Troi's table is worrying.

Maybe not to the untrained eye, of course. There is no screaming. There is no bleeding. There is no fighting, or crying, or deep distress. In fact, Deanna Troi, herself, is currently sitting at a table, one forearm resting on the table, the other balanced on an elbow, so her chin can rest in the palm of her hand, while she studies a PADD flat on the table in front of her.

Next to it, though, is a small bowl of chocolate ice cream.

That looks to have melted a while ago without her noticing.

Comments

[reincarnshaman]

It's probably a good idea she's no longer paying attention to the ice cream bowl because there's now a black cat sticking her nose in it. She gets her nose wet and then acts surprised that her nose got wet when she stuck it in the wet thing, nearly tumbling off the table.

Because cats.

"Oh for... Veena..." With in seconds a red haired human, clearly annoyed, comes over to take 'ownership' of the cat.

[ships_counselor]

It's only that it happened so quickly, that Deanna hadn't thwarted it from happening herself. The emotions of animals were ever present as much as people. Deanna offered the young man a sympathetically understanding smile, pressed upward only at the edges, as her fingers has shifted to touch one side of the PADD. "At least she did not take the bowl off with her."

[empathic_pathfinder]

"Counselor?"

And one person she can't really fool is the other half-Betazoid on the ship. Lt. Cdr. Terzen T'Karr is stood at a respectful distance from her table, a cup of tea in one hand. He's just finished a shift on the bridge and needed to unwind.

So, whatever's going on in Deanna's mind is completely at odds to that aim.

"May I join you?"

[ships_counselor]

Deanna looked up, her head moving almost without her eyes, as she was tracing toward the end of a paragraph on personal history, before they followed. Then, a moment of surprise, and something that was more a flash of apology that was felt more than that showed across her face.

"Terzen." Deanna nodded, even as she shifted the PADD closer to herself, weighting the priorities and the time frame. All the the same she still says, and entirely means, "Of course. Yes. Please do."

[usescontractions]

Lal almost passed by Deanna's table without stopping. She noticed the untouched dessert, the PADD, the look on the counselor's face... She was obviously busy, but then again Deanna had been one of the people closest to her during her short time on the Enterprise before. It raises a tiny bubble of guilt when she considers this, and the fact that she hadn't really gone out of her way all this time to see the woman.

So she does stop.

"Counselor Troi?"

[ships_counselor]

Her vastly focused preoccupation gives it an extra second before she realizes someone has called her title and name in question. Making her lift her gaze for the paragraphs she was still skimming, and finding an unexpected but familiar face. She'd seen it come up in the constantly updated files about the new people, after all.

"Good evening, Lal."

[itmeanstruth]

Minoru casually slipped into the chair next to the counselor. Being completely new to the ship, he didn't know who she might be or what that strange thing on the table was. But he did know that he was hungry, and if the ice cream had melted, she probably didn't want it anymore, right? (It's not like he had any money on him to actually purchase food... And the only places he was allowed to go until the medical examination were guest quarters and this restaurant. No where he could forage, really.)

"... Excuse me, Miss?" He pointed to the bowl of melted ice cream between them and his stomach growled. "...Are you going to eat that?"

[ships_counselor]

Deanna looked up as soon as the chair next to her moved, and the wash of emotions with the new person came. The face was only slightly familiar. He must have been one of the newest ones. Between the uncertain recognition and the anxiety threaded throughout his presence.

She looked to the bowl, realizing with some surprise that her perfectly sculpted curls of chocolate had become a brown puddle in the bottom of her bowl instead. "I guess not. I hadn't realized I'd left there so long."

[ethnobotany]

The fact that Deanna has let her chocolate ice cream melt is the big sign, not just that the ice cream is there at all. Beverly knows that look, knows what it means that her friend has the comfort food. She pauses, halfway into Ten Forward with her usual bowl of fruit, and for a few seconds seems to debate with herself. On the one hand, this is her friend. On the other, this isn't the exact version of her friend and her presence might not be welcome. Still, it isn't in her nature to bypass anyone in need, least of all a dear friend, so eventually, she approaches, bowl of fruit and cup of tea in hand.

"Mind if I join you?" she asks mildly.

Unlike the first time they spoke here in this timeline, Beverly seems to be settling in much better. She's still a little tense, but that can be attributed as much to the recent crisis as anything else. Her combadge is still gone, as expected, but she will likely feel much more settled in her own skin with far fewer emotional barrages.

[ships_counselor]

Deanna looks up, a little surprised to be distracted, but her smile comes the next second. Even if that smile is light and a little wan. It's good to see Beverly out on any night, and she nodded. "Of course. Please do."

She could probably use a break as it is. She looked down at the PADD, and then to the spoon on one side of it and then over to her bowl of ice cream. That wasn't. It wasn't ice cream anymore. It was a small chocolate puddle or pool in a nice glass. There was a moment of consternation that touched her face, but not deeply. Correction. Maybe it was more than a 'probably.'

[diamonds_are_forever]

Emma entered the bar after dropping Faith off at daycare. She had a plan to drink some coffee and try to work out a way to get more information than was readily available to displaced people. At the moment her total plan was 'identify an underling who knows more than me and buy them a drink', which was as coy as a rubber mallet.

She paused when she saw the melted ice cream and Deanna's thoughts began to filter in. It happened anytime Emma was too close to someone and she almost backed off on instinct. Something about the woman's mind was familiar, maybe it was just the business and the weight of the decisions.

Emma really couldn't help being a busybody, especially with nothing else to occupy herself. Especially since something about the woman's mind resonated with Emma's. It was intriguing. She could sense other telepaths, perhaps that sense worked with non-mutants as well. To test Emma opened her own defenses, letting her thoughts project just a touch. "You seem like you could use a break."

[ships_counselor]

Deanna looked up, a little surprised for the interruption, maybe even like she was surprised anyone else was there. Even though she was in Ten Forward surrounded by them. It being where the crew came to relax, and the central hub of the people who were being put on The Enterprise. She looked at the Padd and then to her -- oh, well -- her melted puddle of chocolate ice cream in a bowl.

"You may very well be right." Deanna considered her for a second. "Emma, right? I was actually hoping to speak with you."

[knight_2000]

Now that was strange. Usually, when people got ice cream, they were serious about it. From the looks of things, this woman hadn't even touched her bowl. The last time he saw someone studying that diligently, it was Gaila and she'd had a test. Maybe she hadn't been the only one.

Kitt keeps an eye on her, watching for a few moments longer, but no, still no motions towards eating. Finally, it starts to bother him enough that he walks over to the table.

"I can take that for you if you want. Get you something else even, if you'd like."

No, it's not his job, but he's got a thing about tidiness.

[ships_counselor]

Deanna looked up at the modulated voice, so like at least one other she knew, but not that one. It took here a moment looking at her table before she caught on to what he'd meant. Her ice cream bowl. Which was not chocolate ice cream anymore, so much more like chocolate soup. It didn't even have any little melting mounds in it holding out. How long had it been since she took a bit.

"You really don't have to do that," Deanna commented, though it was polite and a little confused. Kitt definitely wasn't one of the people who worked in the room, though she could understand their need to be able to do things. Unless he was. But she hadn't seen any updates from Guinan about her hiring more people for the room.

[abyssum_invocat]

"Your ice cream has melted," says Sinthia, having been watching the woman from a few tables away; she's got a few colored blobs of clay, and though she is manipulating them into taking a shape not unlike a sprouting seed, she isn't touching them.

Nor is she looking at it, favoring Deanna at the moment.

[ships_counselor]

Deanna looked up at the young voice, and then young girl, surprised for the interruption. Before looking across her table to the bowl. Which definitely wasn't ice cream anymore, was it? Not when it looked suddenly like a thick brown liquid. There was a quizzically brief sort of frown, that settled on some tired acceptance. "It did, didn't it."

She ended up busier and more focused than she'd thought she would be when she originally got it.

[chaotica]

"I suppose you're the one I should talk to about a job."

Cambridge slides into the seat across from her without waiting for an invitation, but does, at least, place an unmelted identical bowl of ice cream next to her. 'Presumptuous' is a word people use to describe him a lot, and not unwarrantedly.

"Hugh Cambridge," he supplies, for his name. He wears a Starfleet uniform with purple-grey shoulders, the kind from a decade in the future. The collar is blue; two pips. Full lieutenant. Which is a bit low, given his age. "One of the latest batch of Q's victims."

[ships_counselor]

If Deanna looks stunned by this sudden announcement and interruption -- both without the slightest of requests or apologies. Only the assumption that neither is needed and his needs are foremost her concern, as though her own will play second fiddle. Demanding.

"Counselor Troi." Who sounds surprised, as well as actually inconvenced by his arrogance. Especially during a time that is set aside as her own, and not anything relative to her duty. "My apologies for your removal from your home, but I believe you have me mistaken. I don't have any part in the present situation of granting jobs to those who are newly arriving." A small pause, before to be clear. "Star Fleet officers, included."

She hasn't in the slightest yet. She'd barely pushed through the idea for Tasha, herself.

And, given this, she had to admit it was a good example of exactly what she didn't think she was looking for if she did.

[the_blood]

Permissions post

She needed... less males. She was a little on edge as the poison she drank worked its way through her system, as an emptiness chilled her right ring finger. Normally she tried to time this all out with her moontime, but no way was she giving Theiorn any more excuse to fuss than she had to.

So now she was trying to prove that she was perfectly fine, thank you very much. Which meant she couldn't just curl up in bed with a sniffle book. It also didn't help that she was out of sniffle books. She could only hope Jaenelle would think to include one in her next shipment. All she had left was a Tracker and Shadow that she was saving.

So she headed to the lounge... and saw... Well... her senses told her the woman was like but unlike, a sister but not. Conflicting senses like that could mean danger, or could mean a new friend for life. She was tired of being coddled, so she dropped into the chair opposite Deanna.

"I hope it's okay if I join you, sister?" she asked, letting her gold eyes beg the other woman to say it was. Mother Night, but she needed some female company.

Theiorn followed like the good little guard he was pretending to be for the moment.

[ships_counselor]

The request isn't an entirely unwelcome one. "Yes, do."

Maybe what she does need most is the chance to get out of her own thoughts, and to think of something entirely otherwise before she makes any decision. "I think I could use the distraction tonight, and I don't believe we've met yet?"

[agathaheterodyne]

Permissions post

Agatha hadn't noticed the woman, or the ice cream, until a spring she had been tightening escaped from the device she was building, sailed over her shoulder and... splashed messily into the ice cream.

Blinking, Agatha turned around, trying to figure out where it had gone.

[ships_counselor]

Deanna snapped back into the present. To her table, and her body, and the chocolate ice cream as it suddenly splashed at her, cold and wet, on her clothes, her skin and her hair. There was a sound of surprise, before she was looking around confused, from the bowl to wherever it might have come from.

[primeverdeen]

Sorrow. Despair. Pain. These were the emotions rolling off of Prim as she wandered in. She wasn't even sure why she was leaving her room, other than the fact that she told Killian she'd try to not just vanish, and had no clue where else to find him.

She made her way over to the seats near the star-field, to just stare out at the nothingness.

[ships_counselor]

Deanna's gaze rose, following the child who crossed not far from her. She remember this one. Because some of them were deeply unfair. But, especially, the times where Q brought children, and then sundered them even further. The girl who was without her older sister now. She was a roil of sadness and pain, unsurprisingly for her circumstances.

But. It was good to see her out of her room.

Making that choice to be in a more social location. and taking the steps to back it up.

[kaylinneya]

Kaylin's permission post/trigger warning

Kaylin headed in for more food. She was happy to be fully grown again, the whole inch or two really mattered, it seemed. She walked right past Deanna's table with a tray full of food... but...

The familiar didn't.

The small translucent dragon looking thing would feel like a mass of chaos, emotionally. Quick fluxes from one to another to another. It landed right in front of Deanna and chirruped at her.

Kaylin had been about to sit at another table when she heard that and turned. "Don't you dare!" she warned. She sounded angry, the emotion rolling off her was a mix of anger...and fear.

[ships_counselor]

Deanna's only reaction is really surprise. Blinking herself out of her fuge of thinking.

To the girl suddenly yelling and the small silver looking creature on her table.

[makesbettermouth]

"Oh my gosh, I had no idea they have chocolate ice cream here."

Amy is transfixed. Amy Loooooves Ice Cream, and aside from the sundae she bummed off of Goofy the other day she hasn't had any in weeks.

[ships_counselor]

"Hmm?" Deanna looked up surprised at the interruption, back into the present.

"Oh." And then there was another oh in her expression as her eyes found hers. Which was no longer ice cream, but a small swimming pool or melted chocolate and milk, held in the delicate circle of her bowl. Oh, well. She looked back up. "Yes, you can get it from the replicator. Along with several other flavors." This one simply happened to be her favorite.